Adoption in the Media: SVU "Wednesday's Child"

A recent episode of SVU took notes from the Reuter's investigation published this fall about "rehoming". This involves a trend of adoptive families, usually having adopted internationally, being unable or unwilling to parenting a child they've adopted. This is usually due to special needs or behaviors in the home. Sometimes the agencies were not honest, sometimes information was left out, and sometimes parents underestimated the effort to parent children who've been traumatized and often institutionalized.

Either way, the adoptive families essentially give the children to people they've met online, often with no oversight or accountability. As the investigation found, this can lead to dangerous and abusive situations for the child. SVU's newest episode focuses on such a case. I won't go into all the episode details to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the episode. A recap can be found here. The Reuter's investigation can be found here.

My two cents- I don't think it is wrong in every situation for an adoptive placement to fail but it should be few and far between. There needs to be greater transparency from the get-go, and adoption agencies should prepare families for the worst case scenario before the child comes home. Love isn't always enough. Things like RAD and FAS will almost always require professional intervention.

There should be ongoing financial support for services, especially from the church, since in my opinion, that is the largest group pushing international adoptions. For example, in my state, there are great resources for adoption disruptions and difficulties if the child was adopted from foster care, but if adopted privately, services are private pay and probably not affordable for most (especially since families have already spent so much on the adoption in the first place). I don't think it's right for churches to push orphan care and then leave the families struggling once they get the child home. Churches should have adoption ministries with people qualified to give support to families, or should contribute to such a service.

When support is provided, and the adoption still cannot be maintained, any disruption should be done through child services or an attorney to ensure a through homestudy is done and there are post-placement visits done by a social worker, as required by law.